


A Slayer and a Mercenary Walk Into a Bar...

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Clones, Community: intoabar, Crossover, Drinking to Cope, Gen, Heavy Drinking, Past Character Death, Resurrection, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy comes back to life. Again. This calls for a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Slayer and a Mercenary Walk Into a Bar...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the intoabar challenge, with the characters Buffy Summers and Jayne Cobb.

When Buffy awoke again, it was to the horrible, sinking feeling of Deja-vu. With the realization that she was breathing - living - again, came the sense of resigned fatalism she had come to expect from her mortal lives. The first resurrection had burned through her soul, but after the third she had become rather blasé about the whole process. Despite the fact that hundreds of Slayers had come before her, and thousands after, she was always the only one summoned when things looked the most dire.

Shaking off the stiffness in her limbs - from new cloning, rather than rigor mortis, she recognized - Buffy looked around. It was a sterile lab, but she was alone in it. Typical. Half of the times she had been brought back, it was to an empty, lonely place, with no one around who cared to explain why she had been revived.

Stumbling to her feet, Buffy made her way as quickly as possible out of the lab. Experience had taught her that the best way to handle this situation was to get roaring drunk, and no matter how far into the future she was this time, one thing that she knew would still exist was alcohol.

The world outside the lab was less refined than she expected, and she would have wondered at the dichotomy if seven lifetimes hadn't sucked all of the wonder out of her. Sure enough, three doors down was a building that was clearly identified as a saloon, looking as though it had come straight off an old western movie set, and Buffy breezed inside. A quick search through her pockets proved that whoever revived her had not thought to provide for her needs, and she didn't seem to have anything that would pass for money on this world. Time for plan B, which, along with her alcohol tolerance, she had also perfected over the years.

Letting out a sharp whistle that grabbed the attention of the room, Buffy took on a challenging pose. "I bet any man here a drink that I'm stronger than him!" she declared firmly.

The surprised murmurs were instantaneous, and Buffy saw several men who appeared ready to step forward. The first one was a tall, thin man, with close cropped black hair and a shirt that said Blue Sun. Buffy didn't recognize the reference, but it didn't matter. She could tell from the cant of his hips that he was used to wearing guns, and the curl of his lip told her what he thought of her challenge.

"I'd love for you to buy me a drink, sweetie," he drawled.

Buffy smiled charmingly at him. "Fantastic. Then you'll be able to beat me at a grappling contest," she offered. She usually started out with arm wrestling, but those who preferred guns tended to have more upper body strength. Grappling, however, she could usually beat them in easily. "And you are?"

"You can call me Jayne, honey, and, I'd love to grapple with you." His leer indicated exactly what was really on his mind.

Unfortunately for him, the effect of that insinuation had also worn off on Buffy several lifetimes ago. Instead, she simply walked up to the man and put as much boredom as possible into her tone. "First one on the ground loses."

"Agreed!" the man leered again.

Quicker than blinking, Buffy slung out one foot, slid it around his ankle, and yanked back as hard as she could. Off balance, the man's leg flew out from under him and he crashed hard onto his back on the dusty floor.

Ignoring him, Buffy strode up to the bar. "A shot of the best," she demanded. A jerk of her thumb over her shoulder indicated her fallen challenger. "He's paying."

With a small smirk, the man behind the counter handed her a shot glass full of a milky liquid, and Buffy slugged it back. The burn was strange and yet familiar, as all alcohol was, and immediately Buffy felt braced for whatever was coming. "Awesome! Line 'em up!" she instructed.

Turning back to the room at large, Buffy found her first victim - Jayne - still on the floor, a dazed, angry look on his face. "Who's next?" Buffy asked, smirking.

A short, squat man stepped forward, but Buffy recognized the stance of a trained fighter in his few short moves. She'd not catch him with the same brawling trick. "Stamina it is!" she declared, quickly flipping into a handstand. "Feel free to join me," she suggested.

To his credit, the new fighter actually attempted the handstand, and held it for a few minutes before his arms buckled and he fell. Buffy held the pose for a good minute further before smoothly rightening herself. "Next?"

Next turned out to be a heavyset laborer whose eyebrows practically rose off his forehead when Buffy easily slammed his arm into the bar. Arm wrestling was her preferred battlefield, but unfortunately, both of her first two challengers had been well muscled in that area. The next two, however, succumbed as easily as the laborer, and as Buffy slung back another shot, she winked at the bartender. "I hope you're keeping track of all this."

Jayne had finally picked himself off the floor, and came back for another round, grumbling about Buffy's "rutting cheating move" from before. Buffy offered him the same challenge, and another surprise wrestling move – this one to his midsection, as he had thought to brace his feet better – had him on the floor in an instant again.

Within an hour, Buffy had a pleasingly long line of shots on the bar, and most of her challengers had taken their own drinks to other dark corners to nurse their bruised egos. It generally only took two beatings before some man decided that his ego was worth more than her drinks, though her first - Jayne - had come back four times.

As Buffy took her seat and began to rapidly throw back her accumulated shots, Jayne sat beside her. After a long, speculative look, Buffy decided that he wasn't going to put up a fight, and she let him be.

He ordered a mug of something - Buffy thought he called it milk - and began to drink. Buffy relaxed and slowed down her own binge. Part of her wasn't surprised that Jayne would be the one to join her - someone always did. While he didn't exactly strike her as open minded, he seemed the kind to respect a fellow warrior, once they proved themselves to be as good as him, and she had just done that.

Jayne didn't speak, and Buffy had nothing to say, but they sat together in companionable silence and drank together well into the night.


End file.
